1. The i7-2600 is a locked CPU, which means that overclocking can only be done by changing the BCLK setting, which is not easy. The i7-2600K is an unlocked CPU, so overclocking is a simple matter of changing the multiplier in the BIOS.

2. The 660 Ti is currently the best BFTB (bang-for-the-buck) card IMO. It is a great card in combination with the i7-2600, but of course can be ported to a new system without problems when the time comes.

3. I would only look at 1 TB drives, since they have the best $/GB ratio without costing an arm and leaving most of the space unused. 2 or 3 TB drives have even better $/GB ratio, but it is questionable whether you would need that much space.

For saving some money on my own build, I resorted to 1 TB disks only, although I initially thought about 2 TB disks, but finally I opted for 1 TB enterprise disks. See Planning and building a new NLE system.

Thanks for the tip john! I'm assuming the 660 ti running the new Kepler GPU architecture is supported by PP/AE cs6's cuda acceleration, right? I say a post on the forums where somone mentioned that Kepler cards are not pp/AE gpu accelerated...

...if not "officially" supported.....just apply the often mentioned here "hack" to enable the card to use Mercury Playback. There used to be a program that would even do this for you at the Studio North website.